Helper finishes season

Helper American Legion finished up their league play last week. Taylorsville came to town Monday night for a double header. T-ville won the first game 11 to zero, Helper lost game two 14 to 13.

Helper then traveled north on Wednesday to play the junior U-17 Taylorsville team. Helper finished their season with a 12-3 loss to the U-17 bunch. With the loss Helper's record dropped to 10 to six and a probable third place finish in the standings.

The younger Taylorsville team was in first place and had a record of 10 to zero compared to Helper's 10 to three record last Monday.

The first game saw a pitcher's duel for the first six innings. Taylorsville scored three runs in the top the first. Despite that the game was really played very well and it looked like the two best teams in the league playing.

Josh Denison started on the mound and did a very nice job. But Helper struggled to find offense and the score stayed three to zero, until the fifth inning. Taylorsville scored a run and took a four to zero lead. The sixth inning took a turn for the worse for Helper as Taylorsville scored seven runs and Helper's defense fell apart

"I think the frustration of our lack of offense spilled over into the field and we were not focused. We committed four errors and allowed the game to slip away." said Coach Jeff Cisneros about the loss. "The score does not indicate the type of game it was. We really played solid for five innings and just our lack of offense really put us on our heels."

The second game was a complete opposite of the first. Offense and defense were plentiful, but pitching was not.

Helper scored four runs in the first two innings on seven hits. Hayden Basinger and Beau Rich both had a pair of hits and Basinger scored twice.

Taylorsville scored three times in the second and it was four to three, Helper, after two innings.

Basinger started on the mound and did a good job, but the Taylorsville hitters were just doing a better job. Taylorsville had been averaging about 15 runs a game so holding them down was not going to be an easy task. Over the next couple innings Helper put up a pair, but Taylorsville added seven. The score after fifth was 10 to six.

Helper knew they needed to get back to being focused at the plate. Singles by Danny Flahie and Clint Finkbiner and a double off the bat of Tyler Bean got the offense going as they answered with seven runs in the inning. Helper found themselves leading 13 to 10 after six.

Finkbiner, Rich and Colter Moore all tried to shut down the hot bats of Taylorsville but it was not enough as they scored four more runs and took home a 14 to 13 victory.

"The loss was hard to take as we battled and played a very good game. I was very pleased with the effort of our team, we could of laid down and gave them another win but instead we fought extremely hard and gave Taylorsville all they wanted. The loss put us at 10 to five and moved Taylorsville into a comfortable 1st place at lead at 12 to zero." remarked Cisneros

The last league game was Wednesday night against the Taylorsville U-17 team. This is the team made up of returning juniors and seniors for next year.

The older T-ville team is made up of graduated Seniors and returning college players.

Helper had beat the U-17 team earlier in the year with Derrick Anderson on the mound. So with that in mind Cisneros started Anderson